RosalindGardner.com

Learn Blogging & Affiliate Marketing with Rosalind Gardner

Affiliate Site Case Study: Introducing Diner Dave

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Note from Ros: I first noticed DinerDave.com when the domain name registration and hosting order showed up in my Inbox from Bluehost. “Cool domain name“, I thought. A few days later, Patrick Bayne (AKA Diner Dave) got in touch to ask me about Justin's design service. He also told me his internet business story and why he decided to go from a static website to an interactive blog. “BRAVO!“, thought I, and Patrick agreed to document the transition.

So, in the coming months, you will be able to watch the evolution of DinerDave.com – starting with his rational for making the change, to market research, design changes and monetization. Enjoy!

First Things First…Who is Diner Dave?

I am a die-hard diner that uses the internet for anything related to dining out – from searching for restaurant coupons and gift certificates to making reservations at my favorite eateries. Because of my day job as a wine salesman in Houston, Texas I spend at least 2-3 days a week in restaurants persuading wine sommeliers and chefs to purchase wines from my portfolio. The BEST perk of my job is dining in different restaurants almost every day!
I've always had an entrepreneurial spirit, but how do I turn this passion for dining out into a profitable business?

In the Beginning there was LunchDiscounts.com

When I was a wine sales rep in Austin, Texas in 2003 I had several restauranteur friends tell me that they wanted to bring in more new customers, but could not afford to spend thousands of dollars on newspaper or radio advertising. So I thought “why not start a business that would email coupons to nearby office workers and residents that are interested in receiving specials from restaurants in their area?” This service would be free to the subscribers and would cost the restauranteurs a FRACTION of what they would pay for newspaper or radio advertising.

Knowing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about starting an internet business I hired a local web designer to help me create a website called LunchDiscounts.com. I acquired most of my subscribers by going from one office building to another and persuading employees to login to the website to join my lunch coupon email newsletter (surprisingly, nobody else was offering this service). After 18 months I expanded the email coupon service to include Lunch AND Dinner discounts and changed the name to DinerDeals.com.

Diner Deals

DinerDeals.com: Version 1.0

DinerDeals.com took in $25,000 in email advertising revenue from local restaurants in its first year and received a very favorable write up in the Austin Business Journal. The problem was that every penny went back into the business to pay my sales reps and web designers. The sales reps that I hired earned 50% commission on every dollar generated and my web designer charged $75/hour! For all my hard work that year I made absolutely NO money on DinerDeals.com and I wanted to change that!

Enter Rosalind Gardner…

DinerDeals.com: Version 2.0

After reading Rosalind's Super Affiliate Handbook I realized that I was spending too much time, effort, and MONEY on my static website for almost NO return! Why give away all my advertising sales revenue to keep sales reps on staff and pay a web designer to make minor changes to my website? Once I learned that I could “make money promoting other people's stuff online” for less than what I was paying to do it the old-fashioned way I was convinced this was the way to go!

I decided I would change the business model of DinerDeals.com from a local email coupon service to a National AFFILIATE site promoting restaurant oriented services like coupons from Entertainment.com and discounted restaurant gift certificates from Restaurant.com. I signed up for both of these affiliate programs on CJ.com. My first success under this new direction occurred when I made a whopping $400/month just by sending out emails with coupon codes to buy $25 Restaurant.com gift certificates for only $5! Now I know that doesn't sound like much money to make in one month, but you have to consider that I NEVER used PPC campaigns and ALL the affiliate commissions were coming from my 15,000 subscribers that I gathered over the last couple of years (yet another reason to gather email addresses on your blog)!

Even though I made some money sending out affiliate links in my emails to current subscribers, I'm still not getting much traffic on the new site AND I'm still relying on a web designer to make all the changes to DinerDeals.com. So the question becomes “how do I create an interactive, SEO friendly site at a low cost without having to pay a web designer every time I need to make a change?” I found the answer in the Super Affiliate Handbook: create a wordpress blog and populate it with compelling content that will keep your subscribers coming back again and again!

The Birth of DinerDave.com!

So I bid a fond farewell to DinerDeals.com to put everything I have learned in motion with DinerDave.com. I came up with the name DinerDave.com because it just sounds like a trusted friend that you could rely on to help you “Dine More & Pay Less!” (nice tagline don't you think?). Plus, as you can see, I'm a big fan of alliteration. I searched GoDaddy.com and the name is available! I snatch it up and, based on Ros' recommendation, I decide to host the site with BlueHost.com.

Now I just need to create some helpful content related to dining out. This of course means that it's time for a little market research to ensure that what I'm writing about is what foodies are searching for on the internet.

Stay tuned to see how I researched which keywords to include in my DinerDave.com posts to optimize the site for search engines…

Where to Buy Content for Your Site

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Looking for private label rights articles to post on your site and/or software packages with resale rights?

I've reviewed and assembled a list of some of the best providers here. Some PLR packages contain ONLY content while others include templates, graphics and product reviews. Note my comments in the brackets below about each site's main focus.

  1. ALL Private Label Content (Content, Multiple niche)
  2. Green Living PLR (Green content)
  3. InfoGoRound (Multiple niche)
  4. Niche Content Packages (Multiple niche/Graphics)
  5. Yummy PLR (Food content)

ALL Private Label Content

Highly recommended PLR (private label rights) site is Alice Seba and Mila Sidman's All Private Label Content service.

In addition to offering exceptionally high quality PLR articles in 26 niche topics at very reasonable prices, they also give you ane-month complimentary access to their private members-only forum and a list of suggested affiliate programs to monetize your articles.

Go to All Private Label Content

Green Living PLR

Right now, green is red-HOT and getting hotter by the day. Green Living PLR is one of the few sites dedicated strictly to green topics such as:

  • Building Green
  • Reduce/Reuse/Recycle
  • Eco Garden/Lawn
  • Alternative Energy

You can purchase either a one-time package or a monthly PLR Membership that includes
20 Green Living PLR articles, one 7-10 page Green Living Special Report, a Green Living Affiliate Programs List and tips for using your green PLR content.

Go to Green Living PLR

InfoGoRound

InfoGoRound by Bryan Winters is a Private label niche article site that adds 100-300+ brand new articles in 40+ content categories to the database each month. Categories include:

  • Business
  • Employment and Wealth
  • Health & Fitness
  • Society
  • Computers & Internet
  • Entertainment & Recreation
  • Home & Family

You'll also receive 200-250 private label articles on HOT niche topics. Each topic contains between 10 and 50 articles. Professional web-site graphics packages are included with every private label product. The InfoGoRound site includes a built-in formatting tool that lets you instantly format your articles to your desired application, ie. set a newsletter to 60 characters wide.

Go to InfoGoRound

Niche Content Packages

Along with his high-quality (and I DO mean 5-star) content and site header graphics included in these PLR packages, you can literally build a niche affiliate site around any one of Stefan Everaet's Niche Content packages.

Topics include Animals and Pets, Business, Computers and Internet, Education, Finance and Investment, Food and Drink, Health, Home and Garden, Marketing, News & Society, Parenting, Relationship, Self-Improvement, Sports & Recreation, and Travel.

Go to Niche Content Packages

Yummy PLR

Got a mom website or blog? Do you search the Internet for recipes? So do your readers. Bring them back to your site over and over with your Yummy PLR membership PLR recipes. Memberships include 10 informative cooking and food articles as well as 30 Recipes all in Word .doc format. Membership numbers are restricted. Get GREAT food content — on a mom-budget at Yummy PLR.

Go to Yummy PLR

My 3 Favorite Ways to Generate Traffic

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Need Traffic Now? Here are 3 Quick Ways to Get Visitors to Your Site

After working long and hard to get your new web site up and running, you probably have little patience left to wait months and months to start getting traffic to your site and start making sales!

But those search engine submissions are taking a lot of time to bring in traffic. You've also discovered that link trading, joining web rings and posting free-for-all classifieds are time-consuming activities that produce just a trickle of traffic, IF you're lucky.

Moreover, you don't want to blow huge amounts of money on advertising just in case your site doesn't convert visitors into buyers at a rate that nets a fair profit.

You want lots of traffic and you want it now! So, what do you do?

Well, here are my 3 favorite ways to bring visitors to my sites quickly and easily.

1. Blogging for Free Search Engine Traffic

Last but not least, to keep the search engines on my side, I post entries to my blogs.

Search engines like Google reward sites that provide fresh content for their visitors on a regular basis.

Of course, your regular visitors love it too, so blogging has the added benefit of bringing visitors back to your site, as well as generating new traffic.

Furthermore, blog content can then be used and revised to create new articles that is placed on article directories… see the next item.

2. Article Marketing

Articles aren't much different or any more difficult to write than all those product endorsements for your site. You DID write product reviews, didn't you?

If your site is about beer, and promotes a variety of products related to home brewing, write an article called “10 Secrets to Your Best Batch Ever”. Include a resource box below your article that gives your name, a brief description of your site and its URL.

Now start submitting those articles to article directories such as GoArticles.com and EzineArticles.com. You can do this manually or save time by using Jason Potash's “Article Announcer” software to automatically broadcast your article to all the major directories in just minutes.

To learn more about the importance of article marketing, read Jason's article “Google is Watching You” and Jim Edwards' “Increase Sales By Flying Under Your Prospects' “Radar Defenses” listed in the Related Articles section below.

3. Pay Per Click Search Engine Advertising

The fastest way to get traffic to your site is to buy keywords and keyword phrases at PPC's (pay per click search engines) such as Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture), Google Adwords and MSN AdCenter.

Google is definitely the fastest PPC account to set up. Simply write your title and description, choose your keywords, make a deposit and you're up and running. Set a daily maximum budget, and check your income and expenses frequently until you ensure that the former consistently exceeds the latter.

You will know within the week how well your site will convert visitors to buyers, which beats the heck out of waiting months for feedback!

You can drive tons of highly targeted traffic to your site in a very short period of time, sometimes doing a great test with as little as $20 bucks. Calculate your conversions, ‘tweak' your site, then re-invest your earnings to drive even more traffic and gain even more sales.

Be sure to check out my “Get FREE Traffic from the Pay Per Click Search Engines“

Stick with the plan, and in no time at all, you'll get to sit back and enjoy one of those home brews while watching your sales numbers climb.

I've listed 3 ways to bring traffic to your sites in this article.

However, you'll learn 31 ways to bring free and paid traffic to your sites in the “Super Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436,797 in One Year Selling Other People's Stuff Online”.

Basic Services for Your Affiliate Marketing Business

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“These are services that I wouldn't be without as an Internet marketer…”

Here is a list of basic services that I wouldn't be without as an Internet marketer.

Please note that the services I use and recommend are listed in alphabetical order – not in order of importance. If you are just starting out, the “must-haves” are marked with ***, although in time you will likely discover that they are all “must-haves”. 🙂

  1. Autoresponder ***
  2. Blog Templates and Themes ***
  3. Graphics / Stock Photography
  4. Hosting Service***
  5. Market Research Services
  6. Marketing & Advertising Services
  7. Outsourcing Services (Find Programmers, Designers and Writers)
  8. Webinar & Meeting Services


 
 

1. Autoresponder Service ***

If you don't build a list, you're not building a business — pure and simple. Your list will become your most important business asset.

And don't even consider building that list without the services of a third-party autoresponder service. My autoresponder of choice is Aweber — no holds barred. I've been doing business with them for almost 10 years (at the time of writing) and they've never lost a lead and their service is fabulous. And yes, I have sampled a number of the other services, but always came back to Aweber. Sign up for Aweber Autoresponder now or read my review. More autoresponder service options are listed here.


 

2. Blog Template / Theme Suppliers

Make your website beautiful the easy way by getting a Professional WordPress theme for your blog. This blog uses the eleven-40 theme by StudioPress.


 

3. Graphics and Photos

You can add visual interest to your blog posts as well as give your readers clues about content by adding clipart, graphics and photos. Don't be tempted however to copy and use any image that you find online. Most images often are copyright protected, and you need permission before you can use them on your site, and many webmasters will not give you permission to use their images.

So, rather than spend time emailing other webmasters and then waiting for permission, I highly recommend using iStockPhoto where you can pick up images for as little as $1 a piece.


 

4. Hosting Service ***

You've taken the plunge and decided to get your own website. Excellent!!! Find out which hosting services I currently recommend for having top-notch features and services.

If you're still debating whether or not you actually need a web site, please read Free Hosting is NOT for Affiliate Marketers and “Do I Really Need My Own Web Site?“.


 

5. Keyword & Niche Market Research

Which keyword phrase is more popular? “Dog training collar” or the more generic “dog obedience training“? Don't know? Knowing which keyword phrase gets the most searches is very important if you want to reach the largest possible audience and hence, increase your sales.

I use and recommend a service called Wordtracker, which lets you optimize your website content by finding the most popular keywords. You can also use Wordtracker to generate thousands of relevant keywords to improve your organic and PPC search campaigns. Last but not least, most marketers use Wordtracker to research online markets and find niche opportunities before they spend valuable time and money building a site around a niche market that may be too small to be worthwhile, or worse not even exist.

Wordtracker offers a FREE trial service, which for starters, may be all you need.


 

7. Outsourcing Work to Programmers, Designers and Writers

Having trouble getting that plugin work? Do you want to tweak your site but don't know where to begin – or are scared that you might break something?

Every so often there will probably be something you want to accomplish with your site that you just don't know how to do — or don't have time for. For example, although I like to do basic design changes to my own websites, I will not even attempt to design an ebook or report cover. For that work, I prefer to use professionals such as Vaughan Davidson of Killer Covers Design Service.

If the company that sold you the script offers only installation services but leaves ‘tweaking' up to the individual webmaster, it's time to hire a professional programmer. I've had good luck hiring programmers and other freelancers through Freelancer and Fiverr.

Here are a few of the categories under which you can post jobs for freelancers:

  • CSS
  • Data Entry
  • Graphic Design
  • Handheld
  • Links
  • Marketing
  • Multimedia Script Installation
  • SEO
  • Security
  • System Admin
  • Translation
  • Website Design
  • Writing

As you can see, the freelancers' skills aren't limited to programming. So, for example, if you wanted to have 25 articles ghost-written for one of your sites, you can post jobs for that type of work as well.


 
 

8. Webinar and Online Meeting Services

GoToMeeting - Online Meetings Made EasyHave you ever wished that you could see what someone else was doing on their computer, rather than try to figure out their explanation of the process?

My partners and I have been using GoToMeeting for exactly that purpose for a few years now — and it has proven to be another huge time-saving tool.

You can perform live demos in real-time to multiple customers, collaborate on projects with your colleagues and host meetings on-the-fly with sales prospects. You can also have up to 10 attendees per meeting. We also use GotoWebinar to hold online seminars and demonstrations – with up to 1,000 people at once.

Both services offer a Free Trial.

12 Ways to Make Money Online

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Listed below are 12 different ways to make money online.

They are listed in no particular order, however the first (affiliate marketing) is the simplest to start, and #2 (Create and Sell Your Own Software or Infoproduct) can be the most lucrative.

  1. Affiliate Marketing: Sell Other People's Stuff Online
  2. Sell Your Own Products
  3. Build a Membership Site
  4. Sell Your Services
  5. Buy and Sell Websites
  6. Dropshipping
  7. Become a Reseller
  8. Sell Public Domain Works
  9. Sell at Online Auctions
  10. Buy and Sell Domain Names
  11. Cash Park Your Domains
  12. Online Surveys

Please consider and review each opportunity thoroughly before making your decision.

1. Affiliate Marketing: Sell Other People's Stuff Online

Because affiliate marketing does not require that you have your own products to sell, I consider it the fastest and simplest way to start an Internet business – especially for those new to online business and Internet marketing.

In a nutshell, affiliate marketing works like this:

  1. You join a merchants's affiliate program; e.g. Amazon, Friendfinder, Zappos.
  2. You place your affiliate link for that program somewhere on your website.
  3. When a visitor to your clicks through that link and buys a product (or fills in a form, or gives the merchant an email address, etc.), you are credited with the sale (click, lead, referal) and make a commission.
  4. The company then sends you a check.

Pretty simple, huh?

Here are a few articles and videos that I have prepared to help you decide whether or not you should become an affiliate marketer.

Better yet, get started with the Super Affiliate Handbook or join my video tutorial training program for new affiliate marketers at Affiliate Blogger PRO. 🙂

2. Sell Your Own Products

The most lucrative way to do business on the Internet is to sell your own product.

However, there are lot of factors to consider if you are planning to sell your own products online such as the payment system, the storage as well as the shipping.

Although there are already companies that offer order fulfillment solutions such as pick and pack services, drop shipping or even a complete fulfillment systems including the payment processing.

Depending on the type of product you will be selling online you may not need to store and to ship any goods.

Software and information products, in particular, are the best-selling products on the ‘Net and enjoy the best profit margins. Most cost virtually nothing but time to develop and entail no storage or shipping costs.

Can you write? Then write an ebook to sell on Clickbank and Amazon. You can even turn it into a softcover using a PoD (Print-on-Demand) service. (Just in case you are thinking, “I'm not a writer, that's not for me“, everyone has knowledge that someone else wants and there are a number of ways to produce an infoproduct without having to write a word.)

Are you a programmer? Create a piece of software for the business community OR better yet, build an iPad application. An October 2011 report stated that there are half a million apps in the Apple store, 140 thousand of which are iPad apps.

Learn more about developing your own product.

3. Build a Membership Site

If you have your own infoproduct, you have the basis for creating a membership site, much as I've done with my Academy, which uses Wishlist Member software on a WordPress blog platform. (To see how easy it is to install a blog, watch my 1-Minute Blog Installation video.)

In a membership site, your customers can be offered so much more than a one-time PDF download, such as; videos, a forum, a news blog and fresh information on a regular basis. I've found that this method of delivery simplifies matters when I have new material introduced to my students. Just post to the blog and every member is automatically notified by email.

To learn more about this topic, please read Wishlist Member Review: How to Turn Your WordPress Blog into a Membership Site.

4. Sell Your Services

Many programmers, writers, graphic artists and data entry workers sell their services online through sites such as Freelancer and Fiverr.

One friend of mine makes her living designing business cards and other printed materials for businesses. She sells her design service online. My friend Joel is a skilled web designer. He has turned his skill into a full-time business which he advertises on his website and offline. He has also been my trusted virtual assistant for years.

5. Buy and Sell Websites

Have you noticed how many home renovation and house flipping shows there are on TV nowadays? Well, webmasters are doing the same thing with websites. They go to a website broker such as the Sitepoint Marketplace and find a site that is getting traffic but may be so ugly that it turns those visitors away. Or, it is making a small amount of money, but with a design overhaul, it could make a lot more money.

A webmaster with design experience will go in there, give it a facelift and put it back on the market. Beware though, some of the prices are absolutely ridiculous. I just saw a really ugly affiliate dating site that only affiliated with Friendfinder, 79 inbound links, an Alexa rating of 453,348,172 advertised for $100,000 US. Who did they think they were they kidding?

6. Dropshipping

Drop shipping is a product delivery method in which the seller accepts payment for an order, but the customer receives the product(s) directly from the manufacturer.

For example, I have a dropshipping arrangement with a watch manufacturer in New York City and sell his watches at WindingWay.com. I buy the watches at wholesale prices in blocks of 10, advertise the watches on my site and use PayPal to accept payment for each sale. When the order comes in I (or more likely, Joel, my assistant) forwards the order to the manufacturer, and they ship it to the customer. If I was more energetic, I would also sell those watches on eBay. 🙂

Learn more about dropshipping as a way to make money online.

7. Become a Reseller

Buying resale rights and reselling products is a little more expensive to set up than affiliate program sales, but you also make more money as a reseller.

For example, I used to sell software called Headline Creator that helps people automatically create killer headlines. I could have sold Headline Creator Pro as an affiliate and earned a 50% commission on each $29 sale ($14.50 per sale). However, it made more sense to buy the resale rights for $79.00, which allowed me to keep 100% of the sale price, or the full $29.00 for each sale made. After selling only 4 copies, I had covered my cost for the resale licence and was earning 100% profits on each copy sold.

To learn more about this topic, please read Resale Rights: How to Make Money Online Reselling Other People's Products“.

Resale rights packages that I recommend are:

  1. PLR Products
  2. eBookWholesaler by Tom Hua

There are also many available on Clickbank.

8. Sell Public Domain Works

Somewhat similar to reselling ebooks, some online marketers have made a fortune finding, repackaging and selling public domain works. Public domain is any work that is not copyright protected and includes materials created prior to 1922, works created for public use, government documents unless otherwise specified, and works whose copyright has expired.

The real trick is in being able to find works in the public domain. Yanik Silver is a specialist in this area and has a 3-volume set of CD audios. To learn more about repackaging and selling works in the public domain, please read Public Domain: Old but NOT Decrepit.

9. Sell at Online Auctions

If you're like most people, you probably have things in your basement, closets or garage that you'd like to get rid of but are too valuable to throw away. Well, have you ever heard the saying, “One man's trash is another man's treasure?” Not only do other people want your old stuff, they're willing to pay for it – and you can reach a much wider market by selling that stuff through an online auction site like eBay.

The online auction business is also a relatively inexpensive and easy business to start on the Internet because you don't need a website and it's free to sign up for an eBay account. It takes only a few minutes to list your items, and each listing costs only pennies.

Learn more about making money with internet auctions.

10. Buy and Sell Domain Names

The fellow from whom I bought my current home was a ‘domainer'. He made a fortune buying and selling domain names — and he's now living in an even bigger house. 🙂

Do you have a great idea for a domain name that someone may want later? Go to GoDaddy, buy it, then offer it up for sale at some ridiculous price. You never know who will bite. I've been watching to see who buys ‘bluetoilet.com' for $2,050.00. No, not my domain name… I'd go for the pink.

11. Cash Park Your Domains

Have you bought a bunch of domain names from GoDaddy that you haven't had a chance to work on yet? You can elect “Cash Parking” for those domains and earn 60% of the advertising revenue generated. The basic plan is $3.99 per month, or less if you set it up for 12 or 24 months. The premium plan is $9.99 per month which entitles you to earn 80% of the advertising revenue and includes free Domain Name Aftermarket membership… which is great if you want to sell those domains.

12. Online Surveys

Understanding how consumers think and why we choose certain products over others, enables companies to improve their goods and services. The better they understand consumers, the more money they make. So, every year, companies in the United States spend over 250 Billion dollars trying to convince consumers to buy their products and services, and a huge amount is devoted to market research.

Those companies have gone online, offering to pay people like you and me for our opinions, and sometimes up to $150 for our participation.

To learn more about the potential for making money with online surveys and which sites pay what, please read Can You REALLY Make Money with Paid Online Surveys?.

Summary

There are SO many ways to make money online. Choose from auction selling, affiliate marketing, reselling, or selling your own product, but DO choose! The sooner you start, the sooner you can move on to ANOTHER type of online selling and DIVERSIFY your eBusiness.

What I DO know is that the more you diversify, the more you will learn, and the MORE money you will make online.

Glossary of Affiliate Marketing & Blogging Terms

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Affiliate Marketing Glossary

Affiliate marketing has a language all its own. This glossary (a partial extract from the glossary contained in the Super Affiliate Handbook) explains the meaning of the terms most commonly used in Internet and affiliate marketing.

0 – 9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y 

0 – 9

2-Tier Program: Affiliate program structure whereby affiliates earn commissions on their conversions as well as conversions of webmasters they refer to the program.

A

Above the Fold: Once a web page has loaded, the part that is visible is said to be ‘above the fold'.

Adsense (Google): Text and image ads that are precisely targeted to page content, from which the webmaster earns a percentage of the price per click paid by the advertsier.
Learn more about Adsense…

Adware: Also known as “spyware”, a program hidden within free downloaded software that transmits user information via the Internet to advertisers.

Adwords (Google): Google's Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising program.

Affiliate: A web site owner that promotes a merchant's products and/or services, earns a commission for referring clicks, leads, or sales.

Affiliate Agreement: Terms that govern the relationship between a merchant and an affiliate.

Affiliate Marketing: A revenue sharing arrangement between online merchants and distributors (affiliates) in which the affiliate earns a commission for producing a sale, lead or click for the merchant's site.
Learn more about Affiliate Marketing…

Affiliate Network: A third party providing services to affiliate merchants and affiliates, including tracking technology, reporting tools, and payment processing.
Learn more about Affiliate Networks…

Affiliate Program: Any arrangement through which a merchant pays a commission to an affiliate for generating clicks, leads, or sales from links located on the affiliate's site. Also know as associate, partner, referral, and revenue sharing programs.

Affiliate Program Directory: Information about a collection of affiliate programs. May include information about commission rate, number of affiliates, and commission structure.

Affiliate Program Manager: The person responsible for administering an affiliate program. Duties should include maintaining regular contact with affiliates, program marketing and responding to queries about the program.

Affiliate Solution Provider: Company that provides the software and services to administer an affiliate program.

Affiliate URL or Link: Special code in a graphic or text link that identifies a visitor as having arrived from a specific affiliate site.

Associate: Synonym for ‘affiliate'.

Autoresponder: An email robot that sends replies automatically, without human intervention. For example, if you had a page of marketing information, you could ask prospects to send email to “info@yourname.com,” the address of your autoresponder. The autoresponder will automatically email the person your information document. Many autoresponders will, at the same time, send an email to you, listing the requester's address and the document they requested. This is an important tool for conducting online commerce.
Learn more about Email Marketing
Autoresponder Service Review

B

Banner Ad: Advertising in the form of a graphic image.

Blog: Acronym for ‘web log', a blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. The act of updating a blog is referred to as ‘blogging' and those who keep blogs, are known as ‘bloggers'.
Visit the NPT Blog…

Browser: A program that allows you to access and read hypertext documents on the World Wide Web. The most popular browsers are Internet Explorer and Firefox.

C

Click Fraud: Click fraud, also called pay-per-click fraud, is the practice of artificially generating traffic to advertisers' sites either manually or through the use of automated clicking programs (called hitbots). The advertiser pays for this traffic, which has no potential for generating revenue, however, the scammer receives a percentage of the pay-per-click fees paid by the advertiser.

Click Fraud Detection/Monitoring: Service that provides independent monitoring of clicks from your PPC campaigns. If you notice fraudulent activity, Google or Yahoo!/Overture may provide a refund.

Click-Through: When a user clicks on a link and arrives at a Web site.

Click-Through Ratio (CTR): Percentage of visitors who clickthrough to a merchant's Web site.

Clickbank: Popular online billing, 3rd party payment processor and marketing service for the development of affiliate programs, and the largest distributor of digital information products on the Internet. Eliminates the need for a merchant account. Known for its ease-of-use. Learn more about credit card processing services.
Join Clickbank

Cloaking: Hiding of page content or affiliate linking code.

Commission: Also known as a bounty or referral fee, the income an affiliate is paid for generating a sale, lead or click-through to a merchant's web site.

Co-branding: Where affiliates are able include their own logo and/or colors on the merchant's site.

Comment Spam: Unwanted comments posted to blogs in an attempt to gain a link back to the poster's site. Usually generated automatically by software known as ‘spambots' and occassionally by individuals.

Contextual Link: Placement of affiliate links within related text.

Conversion: When one of your visitors makes a purchase on the merchant's site… i.e. converts from ‘visitor' to ‘buyer'.

Conversion Rate (CR): The percentage of visits to your site that convert to a sale. I.e. If 1 person in every hundred visitors to your site makes a purchase, then your conversion rate is 1:100 or 1 percent.

Cookie: A cookie is a piece of information sent by a Web Server to a Web Browser that the Browser software is expected to save and to send back to the Server whenever the browser makes additional requests from the Server. You may set your browser to either accept or not accept cookies. Cookies can contain user preferences, login or registration information, and/or “shopping cart” information. When a cookied browser sends a request to a Server, the Server uses the information to return customized information.
Learn more about Cookies…

Cost per Acquisition (CPA): The amount you pay to acquire a customer.

Cost per Click (CPC): The amount you pay when a surfer clicks on one of your listings.

Cost Per Thousand (CPM): The amount you pay per 1,000 impressions of a banner or button.

Creative: The promotional tools advertisers use to draw in users. Examples are text links, towers, buttons, badges, email copy, pop-ups, etc.

Cross-linking: Linking a group of domains, usually your own, to each other for the purpose of increasing its popularity with search engines. Excessive cross-linking may lead to your site being penalized by Google or Yahoo!

D

Disclaimer: A disclaimer states the terms under which the site or work may be used and gives information relating to what the copyright owner believes to be a breach of his/her/their copyright.
In some cases you may wish to permit certain activities, in others you may wish to withhold all rights, or require the user to apply for a license to carry out certain actions. See the NPT disclaimer as an example.

Domain Name: The unique name that identifies an Internet site, i.e. http://101Date.com or RosalindGardner.com.

Doorway Page: Also known as bridge pages, gateway page, entry pages, portals or portal pages, these pages are used to improve search engine placement. Caution: some search engines will drop a site entirely if the existence of doorway/gateway pages is detected.

Download: Transferring a file from another computer to your own.

E

Endorsement Letter: Also known as a “product review”, an endoresement is a promotional statement outlining features and benefits for a particular product or service.
Learn how to write an endorsement letters…

Email: Electronic mail, a message sent to another Internet user across the Internet. An email address looks like this jimsmith@bubblee.com, whereas, “jimsmith” is your user name, your unique identifier; “@” stands for “at”; ” bubblee.com” is the name of your Internet Service Provider.

Email Link: An affiliate link to a merchant site contained in an email newsletter or signature file.

Email Signature (Sig File): A brief message embedded at the end of every email that a person sends.

EPC: Term used by the Commission Junction affiliate network, this is your ‘average earnings per 100 clicks'. This number is calculated by taking commissions earned divided by the total number of clicks times 100.

Exclusivity: A merchant that that stipulates ‘exclusivity' in their affiliate agreement usually prohibits the affiliate from promoting competing products on their site. (I recommend against entering into exclusive agreements.)

eZine: Short for ‘electronic magazine'.

F

Forum: Online community where visitors may read and post topics of common interest.
Read “10 Reasons to Start a Discussion Forum“

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ): Lists and answers the most common questions asked on a particular subject. Generally posted to avoid having to answer the same question repeatedly.

G

Google: a popular search engine, is a tool for finding resources on the World Wide Web.

Google Adsense: Text and image ads that are precisely targeted to page content, from which the webmaster earns a percentage of the price per click paid by the advertiser.
Learn more about Adsense…

Google Adwords: Google's Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising program.

Graphic Interchange Format (GIF): An image file format, suitable for simple files. A JPEG is the preferred format for storing photographs.

H

Hit: A hit is a single request from for a single item on a web server. To load a page with 5 graphics would count as 6 ‘hits', 1 for the page plus 1 for each of the graphics. Hits therefore are not a very good measurement of traffic to a website.

Home Page: Your primary HTML page, the first page anyone would see in your Web site. Also called a “landing page”.

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML): The primary “language” used to create World Wide Web documents (web pages).
Read the article, “Why You MUST Learn a Little HTML“.

I

Impression: An advertising metric that indicates how many times an advertising link is displayed.

In-house: Merchant that administers its own affiliate program.

Internet Service Provider (ISP): The company you call from your computer to gain access to the Internet.

IP Address: A unique number consisting of 4 parts separated by dots, e.g. 165.115.245.2. Every machine on the Internet has a unique IP address.

J

Javascript: A programming language developed by Sun Microsystems designed for writing programs that can be safely downloaded to your computer through the Internet and immediately run without fear of viruses or other harm to your computer or files. Java requires a browser compatible with Java. Using small Java programs, Web pages can include animations, calculators, and other features.

Joint Venture (JV): A general partnership typically formed to undertake a particular business transaction or project rather than one intended to continue indefinitely.

K

Keyword: The search term that a user may enter at a search engine. For example, someone who wants to find a site that sells printer paper might enter ‘printer paper' at a search engine.

Keyword Density: The ratio between the keyword being searched for and the total number of words appearing on your web page. If your keyword only occurs, say, once, in a page that has twenty thousand words, then it has a density of 0.005 percent.

Keyword Selector Tool: Displays how many times a certain keyword was searched for at Yahoo! Search Marketing during a given month.
Learn more about niche market and keyword research…

L

Lifetime Commissions: An affiliate program that pays a commission on EVERY product or service that the customer buys from the merchant, once you've sent the referral, i.e. the customer is yours ‘for life'.

Lifetime Value: The total amount that a customer will spend with a particular company during his or her lifetime.

Link: A link is a “clickable” object that, when clicked, will take the viewer to a particular page, place on a page, or start a new e-mail with an address you specify.

Link Popularity: The total number of qualified Web sites linking to your Web site.

M

Manual Approval: Process in which all applicants for an affiliate program are reviewed individually and manually approved.

Merchant: A business that markets and sells goods or services.

Meta Tags: Information placed in the header of an HTML page, which is not visible to site visitors.

Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) : Also known as Network Marketing, MLM involves the sale of products through a group of independent distributors who buy wholesale, sell retail, and sponsor other people to do the same.

N

Newsgroup: A newsgroup is a discussion that takes place online, devoted to a particular topic. The discussion takes the form of electronic messages called “postings” that anyone with a newsreader (standard with most browsers) can post or read.

Newbie: Someone who is new to the Internet.

Niche Marketing: Focused, targetable market segment.

P

Pay-Per-Click (PPC): An advertising payment model where the advertiser pays only when the advertisement is actually clicked. Also, an affiliate program where an affiliate receives a commission for each click (visitor) they refer to a merchant's web site.
Learn more about Pay Per Click search engine advertising.

Pay-Per-Lead (PPL): An affiliate program in which an affiliate receives a commission for each sales lead that they generate for a merchant web site. Examples include completed surveys, contest or sweepstakes entries, downloaded software demos, or free trials.

Pay-Per-Sale (PPS): Programs in which the affiliate receives a commission for each sale of a product or service that they refer to a merchant's web site.

Portable Document Format (PDF) : PDF stands for Portable Document Format. It's a distribution format developed by Adobe Corporation to allow electronic information to be transferred between various types of computers. The software that allows this transfer is called Acrobat.

Profit: The amount of money you earn from your sales. For example, if you sell 10 videos at $47.00 each, and each costs $10 to produce and ship, your profit would be $37.00 per video or $370.00 total.

Plug-in: A small piece of software that adds features to a larger piece of software.

Portal: A term used to describe a Web site that is intended to be used as a main “point of entry” to the Web. I.e. MSN.com is a portal site.

Privacy Policy: A privacy policy establishes how a company collects and uses information about its customers' accounts and transactions.
See NPT's Privacy Policy as an example.

R

Real Simple Syndication (RSS): An XML-based format for syndicated content.
Learn more about Real Simple Syndication (RSS)…

Reciprocal Linking: The process of exchanging links with other websites to increase search engine popularity. Recurring Commissions: Earn commissions both on the initial sale and subsequent purchases of the same product or service. Examples of affiliate programs that may pay recurring commissions are online dating services and web hosting services. Referring URL: The URL a user came from to reach your site.

Residual Earnings: Programs that pay affiliates for each sale a shopper from their sites makes at the merchant's site over the life of the customer.

Return on Investment (ROI): This is the amount derived from subtracting your net revenues from your total costs.

Revenue: Total income for your sales. For example, if you sell 50 ebooks at $27.00 each, your revenue would be $1350.00.

S

Scumware: Software that contains additional ‘features' for the purpose of displaying advertisements. This software will modify web pages from their original content to put ads on the user's computer screen. Examples of scumware propagators included: Gator, Ezula, Surf+ and Imesh.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): The process of choosing keywords and keyword phrases relevant to your site or page on your site, and placing those keywords within pages so that the site ranks well when those keywords are searched upon.

Search Term Suggestion Tool: Displays how many times a certain keyword was searched for at Overture during a given month.

Social Networking / Marketing: Meeting and building relationships with people using one or more of a broad range of sites, such as MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Learn more about Social Marketing.

SPAM: The term “spam” is Internet slang that refers to unsolicited commercial e-mail (UCE) or unsolicited bulk e-mail (UBE). Some people refer to this kind of communication as junk e-mail to equate it with the paper junk mail that comes through the US Mail. Unsolicited e-mail is e-mail that you did not request; it most often contains advertisements for services or products.

Spyware – Also known as “adware”, a program hidden within free downloaded software that transmits user information via the Internet to advertisers.

Squeeze Page – A squeeze page, also known as a ‘name squeeze page' is a landing page specifically created to solicit name and email addresses from site visitors. Many webmasters collect only email addresses.
Learn more about squeeze pages.

Super Affiliates: The top 1 or 2% of affiliates that generate approximately 90% of any affiliate programs earnings.

T

Targeted Marketing: The process of distinguishing the different groups that make up a market, and developing appropriate products and marketing mixes for each target market involved.

Text Link: A link not accompanied by a graphical image.

Third Party Tracking Software: Software located on a server other than your own, that tracks and records visits to your Web site.

Tracking Method: The method by which an affiliate program tracks referred sales, leads or clicks.

Tracking URL: A tracking URL is a web site URL with your special affiliate code attached to it, i.e. http://www.awebsite.com/?myID. Visitors arriving at the side are tracked back to you through your special code, or ID.

Two-tier: Affiliate program structure whereby affiliates earn commissions on their conversions as well as conversions of webmasters they refer to the program.

U

Unique User: A unique visitor to your Web site. Probably the best indicator of site traffic.

Upload: Transferring a file from your computer to another computer.

Uniform Resource Locator (URL): The address of a site on the World Wide Web. Here's an example URL: http://www.byebye925.com/articles/index.html The “http” stands for “hypertext transfer protocol”; “://” signals the beginning of the address; “www.byebye925 .com” is the domain name; “/articles” is the directory; and “index.html” is the name of the HTML file.

V

Viral Marketing: A marketing technique that induces Web sites or users to pass on a marketing message to other sites or users.

Virus: A computer virus is defined as a set of commands, created intentionally, that will do some level of damage to a computer. A computer virus does not float around in cyberspace, but is always attached to something. That ‘something' could be a text file (MSWord document), an email, a photo, a music clip or a video clip. Your computer must receive one of these ‘carriers' in order to get a computer virus.

W

Web Host: A business that provide storage, connectivity, and services necessary to serve website pages and files.
See which Web hosting services we recommend.

Web Site: A collection of HTML pages. Can also be a ‘blog'.

World Wide Web (WWW, or Web): A section of the Internet containing “pages” of information, including text, photos, graphics, audio, and video. You can search for documents by using one of the many search databases. To access the Web, you must use a browser.

Y

Yahoo: The most popular and (perhaps) the most comprehensive of all search index databases on the World Wide Web. Yahoo's URL is http://www.yahoo.com.

Basic Software for Internet Marketers

By

Most of the software that I recommend is available as free downloads…

Listed below in alphabetical order are the basic software components on my computer that I either use everyday or are otherwise indispensable to my Internet marketing business.

They include:

  1. Anti-Virus Software
  2. Chat Software
  3. File Transfer Software
  4. Text Editor
  5. Web Browsers

You can also check out the video tour of my home office. The page includes a list of 25 different hardware components that I use to make money online.

  1. Anti-Virus Software

    Although mentioning anti-virus software may seem superfluous to most who use their computers for business – the point needs to be stressed for PC users who still don't protect one their most important business assets. You'd be amazed how often I hear from people who have suffered complete data losses due to viruses, etc. I use Trend Micro. To get a 10% discount, to use the coupon code ‘trendsecurity'.

  2. Chat Software

    Chatting with your affiliate manager, clients or partners is more personal and gets results faster than exchanging information by email. I use both Skype and Google's GTalk which is free and offers PC-to-PC voice calls, instant messaging, file transfers and Gmail notifications.

  3. File Transfer Software

    Rather than use my HTML editor or cPanel to manage files and transfer them from my computer to the server, I find it much faster and easier to use FTP (file transfer protocol) software. I use WS_FTP Professional by Ipswitch, Inc which offers excellent security features as well as transfer and configuration settings. Coffee Cup's Direct FTP client is similar to WS-FTP and is free to try.

  4. Text Editor

    I write all of my posts and articles offline – so as not to risk losing my work should my Internet connection go down as has happened to me in the past. I use Ultra-Edit, which is a text editor PLUS. Although I prefer coding with an HTML editor, Ultra-Edit Pro can be used to create HTML code.

  5. Web Browser

    Google Chrome is now my browser of choice. Other browsers include FireFox, Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Opera, Google Chrome and Apple's Safari.

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